More than that. Three languages were chosen. One was based on what previous studies had shown works, and one sounds like it was basically a ROT13'ed perl (only with symbols), and from what some were saying on Reddit it was an overcomplicated dialect of perl (though IMHO that would change little). Then, in a study in which they pitted Perl against a language designed to do well in studies, the language designed to do well in studies prevailed.
Even though I do question whether there may be a wee whiff of tautology about this whole exercise, this is interesting because it shows that studies may be able to distinguish between the features of two languages w.r.t. how easily they can be taught and learned. This is valuable stuff, millions upon millions of dollars to society's worth of valuable stuff. What it says about Perl is simply that it was not designed to do well in such studies, quelle surprise, and in particular it doesn't say anything at all about Perl relative to any other real language. $YOUR_FAVORITE_LANGUAGE may well have fared worse, and $YOUR_MOST_HATED_LANGUAGE may well have fared much better.
It is a true shame that the underlying valuable message of the study is being missed by so many people in a tearing hurry to go "hurr hurr, perl t3h suckz, hurr hurr".